Political MoJo

I've long believed that the skills that make someone good at getting elected are not the skills that make someone good at governing. And yet, I'm still a bit shocked and disappointed when I read stories like this one from Congressional Quarterly's Jeff Stein. I won't bother to block quote it because it's worth reading in full, but suffice to say Stein sat down with new House Intelligence Committee head Silvestre Reyes and asked a series of questions that are right in Reyes' new wheelhouse: Is al Qaeda Sunni or Shiite? What is Hezbollah? And so on. Reyes, like the Republicans that held his position before him, did very poorly. Demoralizingly so.

As President Bush winds down his presidential term, folks are talking about his legacy and his place in history. Bush seems to think that history will validate his actions in Iraq. His lack of popularity, he believes, will be ignored by historians who are more interested in the impact his ideas will have worldwide.

That's the point Bush tried to make to congressional members is his going away meeting with the 109th. But the events of that meeting illustrate why Bush is hopelessly misled, and will likely be relegated to the junk heap of history. What do you think history will view George as, a visionary or a stubborn, simple-minded buffon? Judge for yourself.

Bush began his talk by comparing himself to President Harry S Truman, who launched the Truman Doctrine to fight communism, got bogged down in the Korean War and left office unpopular.

Bush said that "in years to come they realized he was right and then his doctrine became the standard for America," recalled Senate Majority Whip-elect Richard Durbin, D-Ill. "He's trying to position himself in history and to justify those who continue to stand by him, saying sometimes if you're right you're unpopular, and be prepared for criticism."

Durbin said he challenged Bush's analogy, reminding him that Truman had the NATO alliance behind him and negotiated with his enemies at the United Nations. Durbin said that's what the Iraq Study Group is recommending that Bush do now - work more with allies and negotiate with adversaries on Iraq.

Bush, Durbin said, "reacted very strongly. He got very animated in his response" and emphasized that he is "the commander in chief."

Enough momentum has been built against America's faulty voting systems to "secure" the systems by 2008, the New York Times reports. By "secure," we primarily mean adding paper trails (paper rolls that voters can check before they leave but that stay in the booth).

That's no a panacea. Models such as Diebold's TSx make voters to go on a wild goose chase to find their vote record. The scroll is covered by an opaque brown door, making the paper trail if not undetectable, then difficult to find. Three in four voters didn't check the paper trail after voting. One study showed Cleveland's paper trail didn't even match the votes. Bev Harris told us, "It's like if you ask a 6-year-old to do the dishes and he leaves gobs of food on the plates. It's almost unusable . the paper trail is not worth the paper it's printed on, because nobody uses it and nobody can see it."

One snag is voting machine companies lobbying against making their software public. Another is the expense. The $150 million proposed in federal aid for the machines is not enough to pay for the changes. That total, by the way, is $50 million less than we spend in Iraq every day. Isn't it worth more to safeguard voting? Not just because it happens to be the foundation of our democracy, but also because, in a roundabout way, insecure ballots got us into the war in the first place?

Sir Richard Doll is famous for proving that smoking causes cancer, but I hope that, after a recent disclosure, he also becomes famous for having no integrity whatsoever. It turns out that Doll took money from the devil--otherwise known as Monsanto--for twenty years. During this period, Doll was "investigating" cancer risks within the chemical industry. For $1,500 a day, Doll found the inspiration to declare that Agent Orange did not cause cancer.

Doll also found the inspiration to forget to mention that he was on Monsanto's payroll. And that he was also on the payroll of the Chemical Manufacturers Association, Dow Chemicals and ICI. For this gig, he "proved" that vinyl chloride does not cause liver cancer, a finding disputed by the World Health Organization.

Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney has been the very picture of paranoid homophobia in the last few years, becoming an almost-comic figure when he filed a bogus law suit last month in an attempt to force an anti-marriage amendment onto the 2008 ballot in Massachusetts. This from a man who opposes "activist judges" and favors tort reform. Coincidentally (or not), most pundits expect Romney to be a presidential candidate on the ballot in 2008.

But, according to the Boston Globe, Romney sang a different tune in a recently re-released 1994 interview with Bay Windows, Boston's gay paper. Romney said that the gay-lesbian community "needs more support from the Republican Party." Romney advocated letting states decide whether to allow same-sex marriage. "People of integrity don't force their beliefs on others, they make sure that others can live by different beliefs they may have," Romney said. (Note to Bay Windows: SNAP on the re-release, but lose the cutesy name!)

Golly Gee, it turns out that Mitt Romney, like so many other Republicans, has been cynically gay-baiting all these years in hopes of earning kudos and votes from the religious crazies who actually think gay marriage is a pressing issue. (In reality, only about 8,000 same-sex couples have married in Massachusetts. Not only has the sky not fallen, but support for gay marriage has increased statewide.) Well, either Romney has been exaggerating his anti-gay feelings as governor of Massachusetts or he disingenuously downplayed them as a candidate, in efforts to woo gay votes away from his opponent, the notorious liberal Edward Kennedy.

So, did he lie then, or is he lying now? Frankly, I don't give a damn. Romney won't win in 2008, thanks, in a stroke of poetic justice, to prejudice. In this case, against him. A recent Gallup Poll says Americans aren't ready for a Mormon president. See how hating doesn't pay?

QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, I'm wondering what books you read while you were secretary that you found most useful and edifying.

RUMSFELD: I started reading a number of books about the Civil War...But I stopped. I found the struggle going on  gosh, those years, there were so many people killed and wounded, and they were all Americans.

Goodness, for old Rummy's sake, let's not wait 12 days to swear in Robert Gates.

Beirut was once called the Paris of the Middle East. Not anymore. The war-torn Lebanese capital is again perched on the precipice of civil war.

As I blogged last week, the Shiite militia Hezbollah, invigorated by its pyrrhic victory over Israel in August, is trying to oust Lebanon's Western-backed Sunni prime minister, Fouad Siniora. Earlier today, the Washington Postreports, the situation in Beirut took yet another turn for the worse. Hezbollah's leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, accused Siniora of asking the U.S. to cut off Hezbollah's weapon supply lines.

Israel has been accused by the U.N., Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch of indiscriminately targeting civilians in Southern Lebanon, where most of the country's Shiites live (Israel claims Hezbollah was using civilians as human shields). Essentially, Nasrallah accused the prime minister of offering the country's Shiites to Israel as sacrificial lambs.

Those are fighting words. If there's any truth in them, no self-respecting Shiite would allow Siniora to remain in office. Then again, many of Hezbollah's followers may believe the charges simply because Siniora criticized Hezbollah for picking a fight with Israel.

Siniora, for his part, made some personal jabs at Nasrallah but didn't directly deny the charges.

Today, the New York Timesreports from Jordan on the Iraqi refugee problem there. (Leigh blogged yesterday about the new reports from Refugees International and Human Rights Watch the Times mentions.)

Refugees International has called the exodus of Iraqis at a rate of some 3,000 a day "the fastest-growing humanitarian crisis in the world." What's more, mushrooming Iraqi refugee populations are causing tension in the countries that begrudgingly host them. Whereas Jordan initially turned a blind eye to illegal Iraqis, security forces are increasingly seeking them out and deporting them, and more and more are being turned away at the border.

A few highlights from the Times piece:

-- [R]efugees say the authorities of this officially Sunni country have paid more attention to deporting Iraqi Shiites, fearing that their militias are trying to organize here.

-- Many refugees say the crackdown has focused attention on Shiites....Even before this, Shiite prayer halls, known as Husseiniyas, were strictly banned here....A prominent sheik representing Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani of Iraq was deported late this summer.

-- "We don't have a problem with someone trying to advance his Shiite faith," [a] security official said. "But we do have a problem with someone proselytizing and being political."

If Sunni-majority countries continue to antagonize the Shiite refugees in their midst, will the Shiites have anywhere to turn but Iran?

Today, NYC sued a dozen out-of-state gun dealers that it says are recklessly selling guns that are then used in Big Apple crimes. The latest suit brings the total number of suspected straw dealers sued by NYC to 47. As the Washington Postreports: "A straw sale is where one person fills out the paperwork to purchase a gun meant for someone else. The scam is often used by those who cannot own firearms, like convicted felons."

This tactic is just the latest innovation that Mayor Michael Bloomberg has been willing to employ to staunch the flow of weapons into NYC. In a Mother Jones piece that appeared last year, Greg Sargent wrote about how a law firm with its own tragic history of gun violence teamed up with Bloomberg

"to wage a landmark lawsuit against more than three dozen gun manufacturers and distributors. The companiesincluding Beretta, Smith & Wesson, Glock, and Browningconstitute virtually the entire firearms industry. New York City's case is built on the theory that gun companies know their products end up being trafficked to criminals and could take easy steps to stop it, but fail to do so."

New York vs. Beretta so terrified the gun lobby that it got Congress to pass (and not for the first time) sweeping liability protection for the industry, though whether it would retroactively apply to the NYC case is still up for grabs. The gun lobby has managed to defeat most other municipal cases, and has filed a motion to dismiss New York vs. Beretta"based on the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act." Nevertheless, gun-control advocates see in New York vs. Beretta model way to force manufacturers to change the way they market and distribute their products.

Meanwhile, Bloomberga man not to be screwed with, and also a mayor (and presidential candidate?) who relies on dems and moderates for his political powersent out PIs wearing hidden cameras to try and make straw purchases at some 45 out-of-state dealers. The Post reports:

"They focused on shops where hundreds of guns have been traced back there from New York City killings, muggings and other crimes in recent years. Bloomberg said the majority of gun dealers refused the sale, but those who allegedly allowed it have been targeted in the [latest] lawsuits."

So there you have it. The politician taking a real stand on gun control is a Republican. Any guesses as to whether a Dem-controlled Congress will follow his lead?

Sen. John McCain, who was smeared mercilessly by the Rove machine when he ran for president in 2000, has hired Terry Nelson to manage his 2008 presidential campaign, if such a campaign materializes. Nelson was national political director of George W. Bush's 2004 campagin, but his most recent fame comes from having masterminded the "Call me" spot that is considered to have stirred up every racist thought in Tennessee.

For the record, Nelson is also a protege of Karl Rove, who managed a stunning smear campaign against McCain in South Carolina in 2000, publicizing his wife's problems with prescription drugs, and suggesting that McCain had fathered a black child out of wedlock (he had not). Instead of condemning Bush's 2000 South Carolina campaign tactics, McCain (literally) embraced Bush. In his interview with Amy Goodman:

AMY GOODMAN: They were very personal, very harsh, and they questioned your war record.

JOHN MCCAIN: And I had to get over it. And I got over it, and I don't look back in anger. I look back as running for president as the greatest experience of my life.

AMY GOODMAN: It's one thing to get over it. It's another to stand with and campaign with the man who did it to you, George Bush.

JOHN MCCAIN: I put it behind me. I put it behind me. Absolutely, we have a very good, friendly relationship.

AMY GOODMAN: Has he ever explained himself to you, why he attacked your wife, Cindy, and your kid?

JOHN MCCAIN: I can onlymy discussions with the president are private. Okay? Thanks, good.

But wait...there's more. Nelso was also James Tobin's supervisor. Tobin, you will recall, is the New Hampshire Republican who was recently convicted of scheming to jam Democratic Party phone lines in New Hampshire during the 2002 elections. He is also an ally of Swift Boat veteran Chris LaCivita, and also part of Tom DeLay's PAC problems in Texas.

In other words, if there is sleaze in the vicinity, Terry Nelson will be found wallowing in it. Exactly the kind of person "independent," "maverick," "straight shooter" McCain likes best.